Blindfire
by Sparrow Quill
Summary: Meryl Volleys wakes in the captain's quarters with no memory of the past three years - or the people in them. So when the life of apparent friend Jack Sparrow is turned upside-down, Meryl sifts through fragments of self amid the chaos of a nation in flame
1. Her Fire

Yet another story in my series of interconnected _Pirates _fanfics. I haven't written in quite a while, so for those not familiar with my work, know that:

-all of my stories are connected (except for the ones based on _Les Miserables _- just ignore them).

-I update at least once daily.

-I love getting reviews.

If you'd like to read Jack and Meryl's backstory together, the chronology is _A Profitable Affair_, then _Swordplay_, and Meryl figures breifly in _The Rain Can't Hurt Me Now_.

Happy reading.

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**Chapter One:**

Jack entered the dingy cabin where Meryl was lying, sopping wet and nearly motionless. A reddish-purple bruise strected across her forehead, starting immediately below her hairline and stretching almost to her left eye. Her lips were turning purple from the chill the ocean had given her. He bent down over her still form and began to reverently untie the lacing of her bodice.

"Got to get you out of these wet clothes, darling." He informed his unconcious companion, while lifting her soaked skirt up over her head.

Meryl leaned forward, groaned, and opened her eyes.

"Mmm... wha...?"

"I said your clothes are cold and soaking." Jack waited for the inevitable sharp tongue that was to come. "You need to take them off."

She looked up at him, an unreadable expression on her face.

"Is everything alright?" The captian asked.

Meryl opened her mouth to say something, jerked even further forward, gasped, and then vomited.

Jack leapt out of the way, just managing to spare his boots. He crumpled the wet dress up and threw it into a corner. "Look what you've done, luv. Didn't I tell you? Aye, what did I tell you? 'Don't you go and be a hero, Meryl.' This is what you're getting, bloody good idea you had. Climbing the mast in that state?"

She looked up at him, still spitting the vile taste from her mouth. "Who are you?"

"What?" Jack frowned. "Meryl, darling, is everything alright?"

"What's going on?" She leaned forward hurriedly and heaved a bit more, wincing all the while.

Jack crossed the room and grabbed a musty wool blanket from his chair. Meryl's naked, shivering form was beginning to make him cold. He draped the old raggedy cloth around her and lifted her head up.

"Meryl Volleys," his dark, kohl-lined eyes peirced hers, "is something wrong?"

Meryl recoiled slowly, confusion spreading across her face. "Why am I here? How did I get here?"

Jack's jaw dropped ever so slighly. _She's lost her mind, this one has._

It was a foolish venture - he'd told her so. Climbing the mast in that kind of storm - and after a night of drinks, no less. One false step and she'd have been lost to the violent sea underneath.

He could still feel his heart flip-flopping from the sight of his old friend slipping from the beam, falling to the deck below and dashing her head as she did so.

_I warned her. I did._

But Meryl wouldn't listen. She'd never listened, but now, after Bart's death, she was a woman without purpose. Throwing herself into harms way was, he conceded, still a step above her old attempts to end her own life. But however it happened - by her own sword or the swell of the sea - Jack knew he could not bear to lose her.

Meryl and Jack's lives were entwined in a very peculiar way. He'd been drawn to her since she first came into his life that long-past night in Tortuga. A streetwalker with wit and wanderlust, Meryl joined Jack's men without much hesitation. Their love affair had been secretive and breif. Her affair with the infamous Black Bart Roberts had been equally breif, though much more public, and, he noted to himself, had done much greater justice to the element of _love_.

And then all too quickly, she lost him. After that, the fire in Meryl went out.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" She cut into his thoughts abruptly. "Where am I, how did I get here, and where's Padre?"

Jack's brow furrowed. "Meryl, you're on me ship. You tried to reign the sails back in, remember? I told you not to, but no-one listens to old Jack anymore, do they? You took a little tumble off the mast."

She sniffled a little, and Jack noticed that she was trembling. "Old... old Jack?"

"Aye," he gestured to himself. "I'm Jack. Jack. Jesus, Meryl, what's snapped in your mind?"

"I want to know where Padre is." She demanded, drawing the scratchy wool blanket close around her.

"Padre... as in that bloke putting you up before you stopped spreading your legs for money?" Jack turned away and began to rummage for something in a worn old trunk. "Meryl luv, you left that place a long time ago."

"But I..." she hiccoughed. "I did?"

Jack produced a bottle of amber-coloured liquid from deep inside the trunk. "Aye, you did." He sauntered across the room and dropped down beside his shivering crewlady, placing the bottle gingerly beside them. "Meryl, do you really not remember me?"

She shook her head.

A few strands of that intoxicatingly wavy hair fell over her eyes as he gazed into them, bewildered. Jack brushed them back with a calloused, weather-worn hand. "Me? Jack Sparrow?"

"No."

"And Emmaleanna?"

Again, she shook her head.

"Liam? Anamaria?" He paused. "Morgan?"

"I'm sure I don't." She said, her voice laced with insecurity.

"Well..." Jack hesitated, wondering for a fleeting moment whether she was just having him on. "Surely you remember Roberts?"

Meryl blinked. "Who?" Her voice was hollow.

_Cold_, Jack thought. _Honest_.

It was the honesty that frightened him. She truly did not remember the man who's passing had broken her spirit. The man who had replaced him.

"Oh Meryl..." Jack murmured.

She cocked her head to one side. "What?"

"It's just..." He couldn't explain to her how happy he was that she didn't remember Bart Roberts - not without risking the return of those tortured memories. "I missed you. That's all."

Meryl let out a strange, half-giggle. "Mr. Sparrow, I told you, I'm sure I don't know you. If we've met before..."

"-Meryl." Jack leaned in close to her, brushing one rough pirate hand over the back of her neck.

She looked at him intently. "We have met, haven't we?" He nodded hopefully as she spoke. "I just... can't remember when. Or how I came to be here, but we... we _are _friends." Her voice was becoming gradually more certain.

He leaned his head in closer to hers. Their noses brushed.

"I remember those eyes," Meryl murmured.

They sat like that for a long moment, breathing each other's breath.

Jack's heart soared. The courtesan-sailor-con-artist-witty-wanderer-woman he'd met was coming alive again.

_Her fire's back._

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First story in a few years, I'd love a review.


	2. Have We?

My word processer is effed up, so I'm working off of WordPad. Please forgive any minor (or - heaven forbid - major?) spelling mistakes - I am incurably dependant on spell-check.

As always, reviews are welcome. **:-)**

Thanks for the review, _blueglass25_. It's great to know that not all of my old readers have since retired from fanfics. I'm pretty excited to be working with Meryl's character again, I really feel that she has a lot more potential than what _Swordplay _got from her. And don't worry, there will be more Will/Alette adventures to come. On with the show...

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**Chapter Two**

Meryl wrinkled her nose a little. "Your breath smells like whiskey."

Jack laughed, lifting the bottle of amber liquid into her plain view. "Want some?"

"Mmm," she smiled that twisted half-smile that had been hiding for so long. "Yes please, Captain."

Jack unwrapped a strip of tattered cloth from around his palm. He twisted the stopper out of the bottle, pouring a small dribble onto the work-worn fabric. He lifted it to her forehead and pressed it against the cut that had opened there.

Meryl jumped back as soon as the rag touched her skin. "Ow!" She clapped her palm over the wound. "I'd prefer drinking it, Mr. Swallow!"

"It's Sparrow," Jack winced, as though her botched attempt at his name had stung just as much. "_Captain _Jack Sparrow... savvy?"

Meryl took the cloth from his hands. "_Captain _whoeveryouare-" she let out a hissing sound through gritted teeth as she held it to her head. "I don't think that..."

Her words trailed away as her dark eyes widened suddenly. "Oh!"

Jack frowned. "Oh?"

"Yes, oh! _Jack_..." Her face lit up, illuminated by the return of a memory. "Oh why didn't I remember you before... Jack. Jack Sparrow..."

"That would be I." He smiled, but inwardly hoped that more of her mind didn't return all too soon. This was the happiest he'd seen Meryl in more than a year, this lost girl without much of an idea who she was. Apprehension and confusion considered, at least this Meryl had no memory of the man she had lost.

The man he had lost her to...

The door creaked open, and a tall, ebony-skinned woman poked her head in. "Captain." Her gaze was authoritative and full of expectation.

Jack rose from his seat and crossed the room, a seasick swagger in his step. He paused at the door, turning back to Meryl. "Take care of that cut, luv, while I take care of me injured ship."

She nodded compliantly.

"There's some dresses of yours around here somewhere." He paused thoughtfully, raising one ring-encrusted finger. "I haven't the faintest inclination as to _where _they are but... rummage around."

Jack made to leave the room, then paused for a final instruction. "Don't drink me booze, aye?" With an unbalanced flourish, he was gone.

Meryl waited for the cabin door to latch before getting up. She crossed the room, Jack's raggedy wool blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders. The dying daylight struggled to make it through the frosty panes of glass that looked out onto the ship's lower deck. Meryl pressed her nose up against a yellowed square of window glass and watched her breath fog up the panes, obscuring the already blurred view.

Outside on the deck, Jack was pacing fervently from port to starboard, gesturing upwards to the ripped sail while his crew scrambled to follow his disjointed orders.

Meryl watched him silently for a few moments. She knew this man. She had known him for a long time.

_But how? Where did he come from? How did I end up here with him?_

She turned on her heel and proceeded to scour the room's trunks and cupboards for something resembling a dress.

_If I had to keep my clothes here, where would they be?_

Her answer came somewhat suddenly, as she opened an old, creaky cabinet and was pummelled with several musty black shift dresses. She grabbed one from the heap at her feet, threw it over her head and wriggled in. The lacing was wearing out, along with the elbows and dearly-departed hemline. Meryl wrinkled her nose.

"These can't be mine," she mused to no-one in particular. Though her mind was in tangles, some things were becoming clear.

_Whoever they say I am is a ragged girl._

The door creaked open again.

"You're dressed." Jack smiled and slid into the room, latching the door behind him.

"My frocks are a little worse for wear," Meryl observed.

"Aye, you let those fall apart after Rob-" Jack bit his tongue. "After... you joined me crew."

She frowned a little, and for a moment Jack feared that his newly joyous Meryl would slip back into her year-long despair.

His fears were quickly quelled. "Jack, can I ask you something?"

He smiled. "You just did, mate."

Meryl's gaze dropped to her feet. "Have we..."

Jack stepped closer to her, drawing her in by the small of her back. "Have we?"

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Please review!

-SQ


	3. Gunshots and Something Else

I spent a few days posting chapters of _The Keener_. I'll admit I've had a wee bit of writers block with this one. Sorry the chapter's a little short - I didn't want to drag it out past it's natural conculsion. I'd love a review or two. Happy reading!

-SQ

**Chapter Three**

_Meryl's gaze dropped to her feet. "Have we..."_

_Jack stepped closer to her, drawing her in by the small of her back. "Have we what, luv?"_

She bit down on her lip, still staring at the floor.

Jack cocked his head to one side thoughtfully. "_Have we_..." he prompted.

"Have we lost someone?" Merly said at last. Then, seeing the puzzled look on her Captain's weathered face, "I just can't help but feel that I'm missing someone. That the crew is, I mean. And I wanted to know -"

"No worries, luv!" Jack interrupted her abruptly. "Aye, right then well tonight I've a bottle or four of whiskey stowed away hereabouts, I'd have a right hard time with it all by myself. So what say we -"

The door flung open, and Meryl felt a wave of damp, warm air rush into the captain's quarters. The fog that had been camouflaged by the smudgy panels of glass that made up the cabin windows was now plainly visible through the open door. It clung to the deck of the ship, a sticky and thick phenomena that the crewmen had jokingly nicknamed "the porridge". A portly man stood in the doorway, partially engulfed in lumps of it, looking eidolic in the bent shafts of dying daylight.

"Captain." The man squinted into Jack's comparibly dark quarters.

Jack, who had stopped mid-flourish as the door opened, returned his arms to his sides and twitched a little, as if trying with futility to feign some authoritative dignity. He cleared his throat. "Mr. Gibbs?"

"We're thinkin' we see a ship nearing us." He gave Meryl a brief sideways glance, then returned his attentions to Jack. "King's Navy by the looks of her. Temaeno seems to think they's privateers but me, I'm not so certian."

"Ah..." Jack pursed his lips for a brief moment. "Well then... we can take them."

Meryl felt a surge of fear course through her body. Her vision began to blur at the edges, until she felt as though she was gazing out from behnd her eyes, into a keliodoscope tunnel. The air in her lungs became static, unwilling to leave her body and make room for a new gasp of the sticky porridge. She shut her eyes and stumbled backwards, aware of little but the rushing of air past her ears.

Meryl tried to open her eyes to no avail. She heard footsteps, heard someone shout.

A pair of strong hands caught her under her arms, and Meryl relaised suddenly that she must have fainted. Well, sort of, considering she was still semi-concious.

"...alright?" It was Jack's voice, curving into her mind in a distorted, almost inhuman form.

She opened her mouth to say something, but all she managed was a gasping rattle.

"Meryl, answer me." Another pair of hands lifted her feet, and she felt herself being carried across the room. "Jesus."

She felt something soft underneath her. More voices joined Jack's in the distorted chorus that rattled about in her mind.

"...arrived..."

"...no time..."

Footsteps. The door slammed shut. Something rattled. Someone coughed. Faintly, Meryl could smell sulphur.

_Someone must have lit a lamp._

All at once, Meryl realized that she didn't know how long she'd been lying there. Again she tried to open her eyes, and again they refused to obey her. Her throat was dry - she wanted to swallow. The smell of sulphur was stronger now, hanging in the air with as much thickness and potency as the porridge.

She heard the not-so-muffled sound of a gunshot. Many gunshots, actually. And... something else. A jolt, a boom. Wood crumpling like paper.

_Cannon fire._

The same surge of pained fear that had seized her before took hold. Only this time, it was accompanied by images. Sounds.

Memories?

_One cannon rang out above the rest - not louder, but somehow distinct. It screeched it's blood-curdling cry, echoing in her ears as she watched the silhoutted form of a rain-soaked man. In time with the cannon fire, with the exquisite precision that belongs only to music, he staggered and crumpled erratically onto the bloodstained deck of a ship. And unlike all that which belongs to music, there was nothing exquisite about it._


	4. Coldest Silence

**Chapter Four:**

An elderly woman slipped discretely in through the doors of Saint Augustine's Bascilica in Port Royal. She quietly made her way to the Swann Family pew, where Lady Morgan Land was kneeling, her head bent low in prayer. The woman tapped her on the shoulder.

"Miss Land?" she said in a hushed tone, so as not to disturb the mass.

Morgan raised her head. "Who are you?"

"Elspeth Shaw," the woman replied, curtsying as she did so. "Miss Land, there's a ship that's just arrived in Port Royal. The captian says he wishes to have an audience with you."

Morgan couldn't stifle the excitement rising within her. _Jack, _she thought blissfully. _It must be Jack. At last..._

Without giving much heed to propriety, Morgan rose from the pew of her foster family and followed Mrs. Shaw from the bascilica, barely remembering to genuflect as she left.

Outside, the sunlight blinded Morgan for a few moments. She sheilded her eyes from the glare of the ocean and surveyed the docks. Sure enough, there it was - a brilliant, stately vessel anchored just off shore. _Jack's new ship?_

"The captian -" Morgan turned her attentions back to Mrs. Shaw. "- wishes to speak with me?"

"Yes miss." The woman gestured to the docks. "He's back on board now, I imagine, but there's some of his cabin crew waiting for you at the docks. They'll ferry you out to the ship... but Miss?" She paused, and an air of caution entered her voice. "Are you sure you want to go? I mean, they are strangers, and in your condition..." Shaw gestured to Morgan's growing abdomen, which had become impossible to disguise in recent months.

Morgan glared at her. "_Condition_? What _condition_?" Despite her looking more than obviously with child, the Governor Swann had advised that, for the sake of appearances, the unwed Morgan simply deny her pregnancy altogether. Up until a few months past, no one in Port Royal had known, save for the Swann household. But there was only so much that empire waists and conservative necklines could do.

Still, Morgan denied it.

"Oh my apologies Miss, I only meant..." Elspeth Shaw bit her lip and thought hard. "...you being a lady of such... _dignity_. Such dignity. Such - um, so _feminine _in nature."

Morgan nodded. "Of course that's what you meant."

Mrs. Shaw continued. "Well Miss if you desire a chaperone, I can -"

"Quite alright," Morgan dismissed, brushing past the portly woman. "I'll be fine on my own. Good day."

And with that, she took off down the road to the docks, as fast as her swollen ankles could carry her.

Morgan felt her heart doing cartwheels in her chest. She and Jack had been apart for so long, sometimes she half-wondered if he'd decided against ever coming back. But now, finally, he was here. The ship anchored just offshore was no daydream, no haphazard fancy. It was solid. It was real.

Her shoes rapped across the docks as she made her way towards three skinny cabin boys who were playing dice next to a tied-up row boat. She slowed down a little to catch her breath, and paused for a brief moment to adjust her hair, glancing at her reflection in the water.

"Here I come, Jack," she murmered to herself happily, before striding over to the cabin boys.

"You there, young man," Morgan called to the smallest of them.

He looked up, smiling. "Morgan Land?"

She nodded. "Lady Land will do. Now take me to the captian."

The boys scrambled to the boat, offering her assistance as she wobbled in uncertainly. Two of them stayed at the dock, pushing the rower out towards the ship, while the third took the oars. Morgan fixed her eyes on the ship ahead of her. It was a grand vessel, even for the great Captian Jack Sparrow. The sails were startlingly white, not a rip or tear in sight, and the port side showed positively no damage. If Jack was engaging in piracy still, he was doing it quite effectively. The ship, Morgan noted as they rowed closer, was immaculate.

The cabin boy turned their rower slightly as they met with the ship, grasping onto a rope ladder that had been flung over the side. He held it out to Morgan expectantly.

She stood up, and immediatly realised just how precarious such a climb could be. _I can do this_, she told herself. _Just a few more feet until I'm in Jack's arms again. I can do this. I can..._

She reached the top, where several crewmen were waiting to help her over the rail. Beneath her, the cabin boy was rowing back to shore. Morgan stiffened as she was lifted up and then lowered onto the deck. The very, very _clean _deck, she noted with confusion.

She looked up.

All around her were men in crisp, clean jackets with gold trim. Clean-shaven, well-behaved champions of the British Royal Navy. Not a familiar face in sight...

"This is she?" A strong, clean London accent interrupted her thoughts. Morgan glanced in the direction of the voice.

"What is going on?" She demanded, assuming all the entitled dignity that her upbringing had instilled in her.

A tall man in a dark brown wig and a captain's uniform strode towards her. "Lady Morgan Land, what do you know of Jack Sparrow?"

"Jack Sparrow?" Morgan couldn't help the qivver of fear in her voice. "What've you done with him? Where is he?"

"I'll be asking the questions!" He snapped, slapping her across the jaw. Morgan recoiled, whimpering. "Now where is he? Where is his child?"

"I - I don't know what you're talking about!" She cried, her arms crossed protectively over her swollen abdomen.

The captain's eyes trailed slowly from her lip, now oozing blood, downward, until they fixed on what she was so earnestly sheilding. "Oh..." he muttered. "Yes, I see." He raised one finger authoritatively.

Someone grabbed Morgan by the back of her neck and thrust her towards the mast. Crewmen took her shoulders and held her there, while others began to secure her arms, ankles, and middle with thick, coarse rope. Morgan's whimpering had turned to silent tears. She bit her lip. A moment ago she had been swimming in her own euphoria, thinking of the man she loved so much. Now...

"Where is he?" The captain stood before her, watching as his men secured her painfully with the ropes. "Where is Jack Sparrow?"

Morgan shook her head. "I don't know!" Her protests were met with another stinging slap. The silent tears multiplied.

The captain grabbed her shoulders and pushed them even harder against the mast. From his belt, he produced a single, loaded musket. He leaned in close to her, holding the barrel to her neck. "Where?"

Morgan swallowed a lump in her throat, shaking her head. The tears were becoming less and less silent.

The musket clicked into readiness.

"Please..." Morgan whispered through sobs. "Please... no. Don't."

"Tell me." The captain demanded, his face so close she could taste his breath. He spoke slowly and deliberatley, emphasizing each and every syllable. "_Tell me where he is_."

"He left..." Morgan's face was drenched in tears. "He left Sierrbo weeks ago... he's coming back to me. To Port Royal... That's all I know."

Her aggressor took a step back, surveying his victim with a cool casuality. Morgan was shaking, her chest rising and falling with each panicked breath.

"We'll hug the coast and wait for Sparrow," the captain announced to the crewmen watching. "We'll find him." He paused, looking at Morgan with a poisoned glare. "And kill him."

Morgan's cries became louder. Desperate.

The captain turned on his heel and walked cooly to his quarters.

"Sir?" A senior officer called out. "What of her?" He jerked his thumb at Morgan.

The captain paused thoughtfully before he spoke. "Well, we've no more use for her, do we?" He took a final glance at the pitiful young woman. "Dispose of her." And with that, he was gone.

Morgan felt her blood go cold. She couldn't breathe. In front of her, the men lined up, each holding a bayonet, aimed right at her. She wrapped her hands around her abdomen and cried quietly.

A crewman gave a shout, and five shots rang out on the deck of the ship.

What followed was the coldest silence in all the world.


	5. Jack's News

**Chapter Five:**

Meryl paced the length of the brig, scanning for those telltale splashes of sunlight that showed where the _Pearl _had been battered in the confrontation, during which she had been safely unconcious in the captains quarters. Spotting one, she fished for the scraps of wood that she had salvaged from the _Spring's Wind_, the privateer vessel they had captured and looted. As she began hammering the rudimentary patches to the inside of the hull, Meryl wondered at the fate of the crew, something that Jack was negotiating at that very moment, several plank floors above her.

"I can't see him taking prisoners," she thought aloud as she worked. "Then again, he's not exactly the type for mindless executions either. He's sort of..." the hammer slipped and crushed her left thumb painfully against the wooden hull. "Jesus bloody Christ!"

Meryl dropped her tools and instinctually put her wounded thumb in her mouth, feeling the oh-so-slight relief the warm, moist cuccoon provided.

"You'll get no one's good graces with language like that," a gruff but playful voice called.

She turned around. The voice belonged to a bearded, portly man wearing a dirty white tunic. The same portly man, Meryl remembered, who had interrupted her and Jack's conversation in his quarters, just before she had lost conciousness.

She let out a small sigh. "You startled me. Mr... Mr. Gibbs?"

He smiled childishly. "Aye, Gibbs. Surprised you don't remember me, Miss Meryl."

"Well," Meryl mused, turning back to her repair work, "I can't say I remember much at all. I've an inkling that I've been here before. I've an inkling that I know the Captain, but that's about the lot of it."

He laughed. "Know the Captain? Aye, you _know _the Captian well, Miss Meryl."

She shot him a bemused glance. "What do you mean?"

"Well lets just say that the Captain's discovered the real _pleasures _of swordplay from the likes of ye." Gibbs winked. "Now normally I'd reckon it bad luck keeping a woman aboard, but your a useful hand, Miss Meryl. The crew's taken a liking to ye." He paused. "Shame you're less inclined yourself."

Meryl bit her lip, trying to digest everything that Gibbs had just said. "Less - less inclined? Less inclined to what?"

"To take a liking to your own self," Gibbs explained flatly. And when Meryl's face retained a look of confusion; "Really Miss Meryl, ye've no memory of it? Trying to do yourself in, I mean."

Meryl choked on her own words. "My God..."

Gibbs, somewhat oblivious to the gravity of his own revelations, took up Meryl's hammer and nails and busied himself patching the hull. He continued casually. "You've been a faithful hand before the mast, Miss Meryl. Don't ye misread me here - Roberts was a fine pirate, fine man to boot. But ye can get past that, missy. I must admit I..." He paused, glancing at her in a way that could almost be called coy, were he not so gruff and likely intoxicated. "...well I've taken a fancy to you myself, Miss Meryl."

She swallowed. "I don't feel so well."

Instantly Gibbs' face was awash with concern. "Oh now missy don't go fainting on us again." He set the tools and wood down and began to back slowly towards the stairs. "Now just let me get ye the Captain, aye? The Captain - Jack!" He called up the stairway. "Jack!" He paused one final moment. "Just... no fainting!" He called to Meryl, and disappeared up to the floors above.

The knot that had twisted tight in Meryl's chest loosened as little. She heard Gibbs' footsteps fade away, and almost immediately, heard another, more erratic set approach.

Jack's boots appeared, followed by the rest of him, walking as he always did with a drunken limp-shuffle. He reached the bottom of the stairs, took a few steps toward Meryl, then stopped. He looked at her, and she could find no words to articulate how. There was no emotion readable in his features.

For a long, long moment, he simply stood there. Looking.

"What?" Meryl finally turned her eyes away, disconcerted by his gaze.

Jack strode toward her listlessly. "Meryl luv... D'you remember Port Royal?" He didn't wait for her to answer. "No, no of course you don't. These privateers, luv, they make from Port Royal. The captain's this lovely fellow Harmond, might of a gentleman, we have a little sit down see and he lets me know that a lady of the Governor Swann's house was found dead on the beaches just afore they left off for London."

Meryl swallowed. "Jack, I need to ask you something."

He ignored her. "Now this girl - er, woman - this woman washed up on shore was with child, this dead woman."

"Jack, who was Roberts?" Meryl asked.

Jack paused, stared again, and then said point-blank, "Morgan is dead."

Upon hearing this, Meryl stopped her questioning. Well, changed it would be more accurate. "Morgan? Who..."

"She was... my..." A strange expression flickered across Jack's face. I was silent for a moment, trying to think of a word that would describe what Morgan was to him. Part of him wanted to say "lady", but he couldnt. "His lady" was never Morgan. Nor Meryl... "She was carrying my son." He said at last.

"Oh Jack. I'm so sorry." Meryl took a step toward him, paused, and then threw her arms around him in a comforting embrace. "Will you be okay?"

Jack shrugged out of her arms awkwardly. He snorted a beat of laughter that sounded somehow unnatural. "Lass, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy?"

Meryl frowned skeptically. "Jack, can I ask you something?"

"You just did, luv," he smiled, releived to be changing topics. Telling her had seemed imperitive, albeit painful.

Meryl swallowed. "Who was Roberts?"


	6. Demanding It

**Chapter Six:**

_Meryl frowned skeptically. "Jack, can I ask you something?"_

_"You just did, luv," he smiled, releived to be changing topics. Telling her had seemed imperitive, albeit painful._

_Meryl swallowed. "Who was Roberts?"_

Jack stared at her feircely for a moment, and then with a sudden certainty, all the confidence rushed from his face.

"He was a blody pirate," Jack muttered, something like dejection lacing his voice. He sank down on a barrel and slumped over.

Meryl moved toward him again. "Please," she placed one hand delicately on his knee.

He looked up at her. "Are you happy?"

"Am - am I what?"

"Happy." Jack's voice held a tinge of frustration.

Meryl shrugged. "Yes?"

"Luv, do you remember the time -" Jack shuffled over and motioned for her to sit down next to him, "- on that island with Liam and Morgan?" He didn't wait for her answer, but Meryl shook her head anyway. "It was just after Roberts fell, and you tried to kill yourself. You told me I didn't know how it felt to love. And to lose. Like that, I mean."

"And now..." Mery tried, "you do?"

Jack ignored her. "I told you that I had. had loved, I mean. And lost."

Meryl vaguely felt memories stir in her jumbled up mind.

_She placed a scrubby hand on his shoulder and met his gaze soberly. "You never answered me."_

_"Answered you what?"_

_"What was her name?"_

_This time Jack avoided her eyes completely._

"She called herself Catriona?" Meryl tried again.

Jack turned to look at her sharply. "We're going to Port Royal, luv. We're going to see Morgan's grave." He rose and made for the stairway.

This time Meryl was not letting him get away quite so easily. She grabbed his arm and pulled him back to face her. "With all due respect, Mr. Sparrow -"

"Captain!" Jack interjected.

Meryl paid him no heed, "- you're quite a coward."

"I'm wounded, luv," he shot back, his words dripping with insincerity. "Fortunately, I was never predisposed to value the thoughts of harlots."

His words were met with a stinging slap in the face. "Jesus Christ, Jack, don't make me hurt you like this!" Meryl wrang her hands, exasperated. "Listen to me; everywhere in my head are little slips of memory, rattling around like a change purse. I know there's something you don't want to tell me. I know there's someone named Roberts that you're bent on hiding from me. But this is _my _past as well as yours, Jack Sparrow." She raised her hand again threateningly. "Now tell me."

Jack sighed. "If you haven't remembered him by now, how good can it be for you, aye?"

Meryl socked him in the left eye.

Jack stumbled backwards, falling against the hull and then onto the floor. "Meryl luv, this is the first time I've seen you happy in months, savvy?"

"Tell me!" She demanded.

He looked into her eyes seriously. "Give it a day, luv. One day. Please."

She sighed. "Fine."

Jack scrambled to his feet. He took Meryl by the shoulders. "Sometimes I wonder about you, darling."

She shook her head. "Sometimes I wonder about me too." At his touch, her mind had again began to stir, producing yet another sliver of memory.

_Suddenly she realised that his lips were on hers, and all inner debate was abruptly muted. His kiss was passionate, but to Meryl it seemed almost practised, as if he had studied the subject somehow, sometime. She liked it. Her lips responded to his, lustfully, her tongue tracing pathways between them. _

_Jack groaned into her mouth. This was without doubt the most enjoyable kiss he had ever experienced. He felt himself becoming aroused, his hands pawing blindly at the lacing to her blood-red dress._

_Meryl smiled against him, guiding his clumsy fingers to the knot where the black leather laces tied. She felt him undo the knot and slide his hands up and down her bare upper body. He pulled his shirt off over his head, removing his tongue from her mouth for but a fleeting second. _

"_Want to have a little fun now, luv?" He teased._

She shuddered a little, a jolt of desire running through her body, powerful enough for Jack to take notice.

"Everything alright, luv?" He raised one eyebrow.

Meryl's thoughts raced, searching her pysche desperately for more snatches of her past. What happened next involved no meditation on the part of either party. As she replayed the image of that man crumpling so helplessly onto the deck of a ship, she took Jack by the back of his head, pulled him toward her, and traced her lips roughly along his.

In the same instant, Jack pulled Meryl's shoulders to him, relishing the feeling of a woman's body against his own. His mind flipped desperately through the information he'd learned about Morgan, as it had all day. In the pit of his stomach there was a festering pool of guilt. He ignored it and focused on his hands, which were finding their way into the folds of Meryl's bodice.

There was a question lingering in his mind, and he didn't hesitate to ask it in the breif second between one kiss and another.

"Why are we-?"

Meryl's tongue slipped into his mouth, tracing lightly up and down his own. She moved her mouth away from his for a split second, enough to mumble "No talking," before she delved back in.

Neither spoke another word. Neither could quiet their own thoughts.


	7. Umi

This is more like one-and-a-half chapters, but I'm posting it as one.

The first scene her raised the rating a little bit - my bad. Anyway, keep in mind that I'm working without that magical device we know as spell-check. Cheers, and happy reading!

* * *

Meryl stretched out her legs as she awoke, her eyes still glued shut with the sweet intoxication of deep sleep. She raised her arms above her head to stretch out the kink in her back, and jumped a little as her hands hit a smooth wooden headboard.

_This is not my bed._

She rolled over onto her side, rubbing her eyes to coax them open. Two warm, coarse hands ran themselves over her abdomen.

Meryl blinked the last of sleep from her eyes, and quickly remembered the evening before. Beside her, Jack was lying on his side, his nakedness barely covered by the wool blanket he kept on his bed. His hands slid slowly down her stomach, one onto each leg, slowly making their way to the centre.

She moaned a little, then pulled him gently closer to her, against her, above her... inside her.

"Morning, luv," Jack smiled devlishly as his body rocked quickly, roughly, almost violently above her. "How'd you sleep?"

A moan escaped Meryl's mouth. "Did we sleep at all?" She managed between breaths.

"Aye," Jack lowered himself closer to her and began to run his tongue along her collarbone.

His actions were met with another, slightly longer moan. His lips worked their way up to her neck, where he bit and licked her pale skin, teasingly at first, until the bites became rougher, almost demanding. Meryl bent her knees and drew herself in tighter to him. His thrusts became harder, and then harder still.

An empassioned cry of pleasure esaped Meryl. She felt her abdomenal muscles tighten, and then out of nowhere, release. Her cries subsided, her breathing (as well as Jack's) began to slow.

"We should get down to the brig," Jack managed between gasps, remembering that he had yet to determine the fate of those captured aboard the Spring's Wind.

"Aye," Meryl nodded in agreement.

Still, neither moved for several minutes.

* * *

Umi pressed her head against the cool metal bars that surrounded her. Crowded in behind her was the rest of her crew, their chatter blurring into a sort of dull roar as it clamoured about in her head. She closed her eyes, hoping that by shutting off her vision she might quell the ache that was pushing with persistance behind those slanted pools of hazel-brown.

After a few painful moments, she gave up and opened them again. The man in the corner of the brig was still staring at the imprisoned crew with an intensity that scared her. She stole another glance at him.

Though not a tall man, he carried himself with an air of absolute authority. His coarse black hair fell in tufts, touching his tanned, weathered skin with the same lightness as a curl of smoke caressing the wick of an extinguised candle. She could see a large gold earring glint through his messy mane on one side of his head. Around his waist he wore a bright red sash, and into the fold of it he had tucked a tarnised brass telescope. If Umi had not already seen the _Black Pearl's _captian, she would have taken this man to be such.

That is, if she hadn't watched him enter the brig through the ship's impermeable solid hull.

For a fleeting moment, his shadowed eyes locked with hers. Umi bit her lip and immediately darted her gaze to her feet.

_Oh God_, she thought, _that was a bad move. That was a very, very bad move._

Silently, she prayed that he hadn't noticed her suspicious, darting eyes.

He had.

"Hello?" He tried, his gaze now locked on Umi's narrow face, obscured as it was by a waterfall of straight black hair. She concentrated hard on ingnoring him. "Hello? Oh God, tell me you saw that." He strode across the brig slowly, his words falling on deaf ears, excepting those of Umi. "Tell me you hear this..." His face was now inches from her own. "Please."

Umi kept her eyes down, trying as best she could to retain the appearance of being unmoved. The man narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her carefully. His expression then changed from one of hope to despair. Umi relaxed. He turned away, making for the corner in which he had been standing. Then, with the air of one who has forgotten some small trinket behind him, he turned back, and reached out his hand.

Umi watched with fear as the hand passed through - not _between _, but quite literally _through _- the bars, and touched her gently on the cheek. She shivvered at his touch, which was icy and hot at the same time, a terrible sensation that always gripped her whenever one of _Them _touched her. Finally, she let her eyes meet his honestly.

"You can _see _me..." The man's mouth hung open stupidly. Umi nodded discretely, knowing all too well that none of her crewmates saw, heard, or felt this man's presence. As far she knew, nobody could - nobody but she. It was something she had hidden for the entirety of her life. Her ability had been brushed off by parents and schoolmasters as childhood fancy, dismissed as part of the sweet madness of one so young.

For her part, Umi loathed _Them_, but she knew that once one realized it could make contact with her, there was no returning. She had to help this man.

"Who are you?" Umi muttered quickly. Her words were eaten up by the chatter of the crew, and reached the only set of ears they were intended for.

The man's voice still shook from the surprise. "My name is Roberts. Black Bartholomew Roberts."

It was Umi's turn to gape stupidly. "What do you want from me?" She stammered under her breath. "Why are you still about on this plane?" Some of Umi's crewmates had begun to take notice of her mumblings.

"There is one on this ship I've been watching over," Roberts said solemnly. "Months and months it's been, driving me within an inch of my mind. I need to relate a message... you can help me." His face lighted considerably, and the winter of hopelessness eternal was driven from his weathered face.

Umi sighed. "I can."

"You can?" A crewman, who had been listening to her, frowned in confusion.

"I'm... trying to recall a rhyme," Umi explained hurriedly.

The man nodded skeptically. "Didn't rhyme too well, what I heard."

Umi ignored him. "Who do you need to speak with?" She asked, adding a sing-song lilt to her speech to add credibility to her excuse.

The stairs down to the brig creaked, and two pairs of boots appeared. The pair that descended first walked with an ill-at-ease swagger, and those that followed were surrounded by the hem of a worn-out red dress. Ducking through the door frame, Umi recognized the _Black Pearl's _captain, followed by a dark-haired girl of medium height, looking a little dissheveled.

Roberts stared at the girl longingly, then turned to Umi.

"Her," was all that he said.

* * *

Loved it? Hated it? Not sure? Pretty please send me a review!


	8. Spectres

Sorry about the massive delay on this chapter. I don't have much of an excuse - I procrastinate like mad.

Hope you like it., please review.

-SQ

* * *

_The stairs down to the brig creaked, and two pairs of boots appeared. The pair that descended first walked with an ill-at-ease swagger, and those that followed were surrounded by the hem of a worn-out red dress. Ducking through the door frame, Umi recognized the Black Pearl's captain, followed by a dark-haired girl of medium height, looking a little dissheveled. _

_Roberts stared at the girl longingly, then turned to Umi._

_"Her," was all that he said._

Umi swallowed a tense lump of fear that was collecting in her throat. The girl that Roberts had fixed his dark eyes on was a feisty looking creature, small and lithe, with wiry black curls that hung free about her face. In the folds of her crimson gown, Umi could make out the glinting hilt of a dagger. It reflected what little light the brig enjoyed with a sharp feircesness matched only by the girl's own eyes. Her skin was tawny and weathered, and her nose was crooked. She was pretty, albeit in an infinitely strange way. Pretty, fearsome, not quite beautiful.

"Her?" Umi murmured, unable to keep an uneasy qivver out of her voice.

Bart Roberts nodded. "She's my beauty... was. Was my beauty. My rose of Tralee." Umi nodded, wordlessly imploring him to continue. "Meryl. Her name is Meryl Volleys."

The Captain advanced towards his prisoners. "Alright you dogs, you have been bested here by none other than the infamous, the elite, the untouchable _Captian Jack Sparrow_. It is my intention to send each and every last one of you off the plank of this here ship and off to govern some little island of you's own, lest you can prove to me that it would be beneficial to me crew to have you on, aye?" His words were met with blank, confused stares.

Umi cleared her throat. "I, er, I have to speak with one of your men. Captian. Sir." She stammered.

Jack frowned. "Now what's a lark like you want with one of my men, aye?"

Roberts nudged Umi gently. "Tell him you need to speak to Meryl."

"I need to speak to Meryl," Umi complied robotically.

"Do you now?" Jack laughed a little. "Right then, well indulge me, lark. What is it that you need so much to tell her?"

"Tell him that you have information," Roberts said. "Tell him that you carry a message from an old friend."

Umi did as she was told, ambivalent towards the stares she was getting from her own shipmates.

Jack suddenly looked uneasy. "An old friend?"

Umi nodded.

The captain motioned to his turnkey, opened the cell door, and allowed Umi to emerge. Taking her roughly by the shoulder, he headed for the staircase, stopping only momentarily to address Meryl.

"You stay here, aye?"

She nodded uncertainly.

The ocean was hugging tightly to the hull of the Black Pearl, waves slip-sliding past it. A lithe, dark-haired woman floated effortlessly above the quietly thrashing foam. Her toes skimmed the surface but left no imprint there. She glided towards the ship, a woman possessed, eyes fixed on nothing else.

Her black curls were still in the breeze. She was a tall, pale spectre of femininity, draped in an empire-waisted gown that moved with it's wearer, clinging to a body that was swollen with pregnancy.

To see her, one would expect her to be quite vital, with rosy cheeks and radiant skin. But there was another elusive quality that clung to her form. Life and vitality seemed to have left her.

There was nothing about her that was lively.

There was, in truth, nothing about her that could be seen.


End file.
